God at the Bibas Shiva

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Scene opens in a dark, empty space, with a cloud of smoke hovering over an intangible, unspoken tension. A faint light begins to illuminate the figure of Adam, seated on a stone, his gaze distant, troubled. Slowly, a ray of light emerges from the shadows, and the warm Voice of God is heard.

God: Where are you, Adam?

Adam: I am at a shiva in Nir Oz comforting the father of two red-haired children and their young mother, murdered by Hamas. Where are you, God?

God: (calmly) I am sitting right next to the father of those red-haired children at the same shiva. You don’t see me?

Adam: (looking up sharply) Yes, I do see you now, but I did not see you on October 7. If you had intervened with Hamas on October 7th, then we would not be suffering through this shiva right now.

God: (pause, with a slight sorrow in His voice) Hamas did it. Not me.

Adam: You could have stopped them! You could have intervened, made them change their ways, placed compassion in their hearts.

God: (firm, but gentle) I could have, yes. But if I did, I would have taken away any semblance of meaning in your life—something you will not fully understand. I gave Hamas free will. That means the capacity to choose, even to choose evil.

Adam: (angrily, standing up) You gave them the ability to choose evil? You allowed them to murder our red-haired babies? You let them choose it?

God: (gently, as if speaking to a child) I didn’t make them choose evil. I gave them the freedom to choose—the good or the bad.

Adam: (bitterly) You let it happen because you were too attached to the idea called “freedom”? What about our freedom? You allowed their free will to override our free will?

God: You need them to have that freedom because Hamas’ free will is the only thing that gives your life meaning. Meaning that comes from choice. If I had stopped them, it would not have been their choice, rather it would have been my will forced on them. That I will not do.

Adam: Where I am coming from, that would have been better than allowing this national shiva of suffering. At this shiva we are mourning all of our fallen soldiers and lost children.

God: (softly, with profound weight) Would you want to live in a world where nothing you do has any meaning? Where I control everything, where your every action is dictated? Where love isn’t a choice but an inevitability? Where your tears are not yours to shed, but mine, and mine alone?

Adam: (faltering, trying to hold back emotion) No. But… that doesn’t explain the suffering. The innocent children, the families, the young IDF widows…you gave me emotions in addition to my free will. My heart, our nation’s heart, is broken, forever.

God: (voice heavy with sorrow) The suffering is not My will. That was the will of those who chose evil, those who let their power corrupt them. I weep with you for every life lost, every soul shattered.

Adam: You talk about free will, but what about our free will? What about the ones who never had a chance to choose, who never got to choose good, never even knew the evil that was coming?

God: If I take away the freedom to choose evil—if I make Hamas nothing but puppets, controlled by me—then you lose your humanity. It is in mankind’s choices, in the struggle between good and evil, that you find your purpose. It is the purpose of the nation of Israel to teach the world about the spirituality of free will.

Adam: But that struggle…breaks people. It destroys them. It leaves scars that last longer than lifetimes.

God: Yes. And it hurts. And it is beyond painful. But it is that choice and its emotional consequences, which give life its depth. If only good was possible, what would be the point of living? You would never understand peace, love, or joy, because they would mean nothing without their opposites. Without the choice to choose them over evil, nothing would have value. The possibility of evil gives life its meaning.

Adam: (quiet, with pain) But I don’t want a world where people are murdered. We cannot endure the suffering any longer. What about the red-haired babies who never chose this hell? Why do they have to suffer for your plan of freedom that I can’t even begin to understand? How can you expect me to reconcile my pain with your “grand plan of Free Will for the universe?”

God: (somberly) I am suffering with you.

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Adam: How can you be suffering if you are the One who sees the suffering and refuses to stop it?

God: Adam, I share your pain. And yet… your emotions are born out of the distance between your feelings on the one hand, and truth on the other hand. The pain, the grief, the suffering—all of it is real. They shape you, but they do not define you.

Adam: God! It is too much! I can’t carry it. We cannot bear it! How am I supposed to live in a world like this? You tell me there’s a higher meaning to all of it, but I can’t see it! I can’t feel it. I feel abandoned by You. Where were you when those children screamed for mercy at the bare hands of Hamas? Hamas is pre-human. They are Neanderthal. Where were you when those families were murdered while they embraced? Where were you in the settlement of Itamar when the Fogel family was murdered? Where were you when 1.5 million children were murdered in the Holocaust?

God: (soft, sorrowful) I am with you as I was with them, Adam. I was there, in their pain. I walk with you, in your pain, always. You see the world through a veil of emotion—rightly so, because you are human. But there is a truth that transcends the veil of emotion: I am with you. In the light and the dark, I am with you. Your pain, your heartbreak—it matters, and I know it more than you. But in this moment, when the pain is so overwhelming, remember this: Your understanding is clouded by the depth of your sorrow. It is not the whole story.

Adam: (shaking his head, tears welling in his eyes) I don’t care about stories, God. I care about the real people who have been broken. I care about the families who can never be whole again. And you ask me to understand, to reconcile? How do I do that when all I feel is anger? How do I forgive you for letting this happen?

God: (quietly, but with a calm that radiates wisdom) I do not need your forgiveness, Adam. It’s about trust. Trust that in the depths of Hamas evil, I am still here. Trust that the choice to choose goodness is what will heal the world. You have the power, Adam, the freedom, to choose how you respond. Even in your anger, even in your sorrow, you have a choice.

Adam: (bitterly) I don’t want to choose. I want this pain to stop. I want the suffering to end.

God: (sighs deeply) You are not alone in wanting that. But, Adam, this pain is not the end—it is the beginning of something deeper. I am not asking you to choose between pain and truth right now. I am offering you the choice to walk through this storm, with Me, with trust. I will walk with you. The question is: while you walk through the storm in confusion and pain, will you continue to yearn for truth that is just beyond your grasp? Will you walk with me while not understanding Me?

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Adam: (whispers, broken) I don’t have the strength to seek that light… (He sinks back to the stone, his hands covering his face, the weight of the conversation and his grief taking over.)

God: (soft, almost like a whisper to the audience) And yet, Adam… the light is always there. Even in the darkest moments, there is light. It is called truth. The pain you feel—its depths—are the very thing that allows you to seek it.

(Adam sits in silence, the stage darkens around him as he sits with the turmoil of his soul, and yet—somewhere beneath the pain—there is the faintest glimmer of hope. The light flickers.)

God: I cannot take away the darkness without taking away the light. The two are bound together. And in the end, it is through your choices that you will find what truly matters.

Adam: (softly, almost defeated) Then why do we even have to make those choices? Why not just give us the light? Why not take away the possibility of darkness and save us the pain? Why did you make the world, where pain resides? Don’t you see that people are blaming you for evil? Do you want to endure that?

God: I am well beyond blame, Adam. Blame if you must, it does not change Me. It does not change my love for you. I gave this world to you Adam, as a gift of love. I gave it to you so that you have the opportunity to touch eternity through choosing good. I presented to you a world of beauty for you to develop and for you to choose to act like Me. But for you to taste eternity it must be a real choice. Without choice, without freedom, there is no love. There is no purpose. You cannot separate the possibility of evil from the potential for good.

Adam: (staring down, struggling with the weight of it) So, you’re saying that evil has to exist? That it’s part of the plan?

God: (sighing) It was never my plan for evil to triumph, but if I remove the potential for evil, I take away the potential for love, for hope, for redemption, for everything that matters to you.

Adam: (softly, after a long pause) I don’t know if I can ever understand that.

God: (steps closer, His voice softer now, almost a whisper) You may never understand it fully, not in your lifetime. But know this, Adam: I am with you, in every choice, in every tear, in every moment of both light and dark. I am a reflection of your own choices. The way this world plays out, is up to you. And though it may seem like I am distant, I am here, grieving with you.

Adam looks up at God, still uncertain, but with a flicker of understanding in his eyes. The light in the space dims slightly, leaving a lingering sense of quiet, a shared sorrow.

Adam: Please help me to understand.

God: (sincerely) I don’t want you to understand, Adam, because if you understood the reason why I allow man the choice to do evil, then you would be forced to accept evil. I want you to fight against evil. Never accept evil, Adam. I am willing to endure the insults Adam, so that you can fight evil by choosing the Good. Your daily, private acts of Goodness, defeat Hamas and evil.

The stage fades to black as Adam stands in silence…